Tag: church

Southern Avenue: Music for Peace, Empowerment, and a GRAMMY Nomination

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Through joy and sorrow – and they’ve known both in their ten years as a band – Southern Avenue do what they do best: make music. Lead vocalist/songwriter Tierinii Jackson, her husband, guitarist/songwriter Ori Naftaly, and her sisters, drummer/vocalist/songwriter Tikyra “T.K.” Jackson and percussionist/violinist/vocalist Ava Jackson, all reach into their spiritual and emotional wells to tell their stories through song.

It’s there on Family (released in April on Alligator Records), their latest and fourth album. True to its title, it’s a musical journey tracing the band’s personal and professional history. Family was recorded at Royal Studios in Southern Avenue’s home city, Memphis. GRAMMY winners John Burk and Boo Mitchell produced and mixed, respectively.

Southern Avenue write, record, and play with one goal in mind: “We’ve always been a band that speaks about peace and empowerment,” says Tierinii Jackson. “Our music is a place where we can leave the ails of the world outside. We can come together, be equal, and heal.” It’s a noble mission that comes from lived experience and presents in a unique blend of blues, funk, soul, gospel, country, and a healthy serving of guitars.

The rhythmic foundation upon which Southern Avenue is built stems in part from the guitar-and-drums pocket that Naftaly and Tykira Jackson create. “With Ori coming up with really juicy stuff and playing slide, it’s super easy for me to be inspired,” says Jackson. “I feel like what’s actually happening is we all allow ourselves to be creative and truthful to our stories, and we are connected to our ancestors, to our roots, to something much bigger than us. Within that, you get the pocket, because we are locked in.”

Naftaly seconds: “At the end of the day, nothing replaces two people that want to do right by the music, no matter what, and have almost a decade of doing it.”

First interviewed on BGS for Good Country in May 2025, the musicians reunited with BGS just weeks after learning of Family’s GRAMMY nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album. As requested in their GC 5+5, there were no questions about “how [they] met and how the band started.” You can learn more about that here.

Congratulations on your second GRAMMY nomination. What does this mean to you, musically and personally?

Ori Naftaly: We’re very proud of ourselves, for sure. We felt that this album was special when we were writing and recording it, not just because it’s good music, [but also] because it’s coming from who we are as people. This is the most transparent we ever were. We felt that it is going to resonate. The circumstances for the album are special, and the story behind it. The [nomination] makes us proud because we’ve been so true to ourselves. It confirms our belief that you can create real music, without gimmicks, and it gets appreciated.

Tikyra Jackson: The first time we were nominated [for second album Keep On in 2019], just finding out, in that moment it does something to you that you wouldn’t expect, especially growing up watching the GRAMMYs every year. Five years later, to be nominated a second time, it feels like the first time all over again, because we work so hard.

A lot of times, when you’re the artist, you don’t take time to look at the work you’ve done. You just keep going. With this project being so personal to us, and representative also of our culture and those that came before us, it represents a lot. The GRAMMYs recognizing us also recognizes Memphis in a lot of ways. It gives us hope for the future, that we are becoming the world we live in and not just participants in it; that the world looks like us.

Tierinii Jackson: It makes me feel great. The first time we were nominated, I felt like we had something to prove. We were putting our best foot forward, trying to make everybody happy. But with this project in particular, we really wanted to embrace our roots. It had nothing to do with what people expected of us. It had nothing to do with trying to prove ourselves. It was our time to embrace our lineage, to embrace each other. This nomination is special because it came at a time where we finally found our identity in our journey of self-love. We’re being rewarded for something that’s very, very close to us. We proved we could do it while staying true to ourselves.

Ava Jackson: The previous GRAMMY nomination, I wasn’t [as] involved in the band. I would come in and record background vocals. So the nomination hit, but not as much as it does now. When we found out, my hands were shaking. I had way more involvement in this album as far as contributing to the harmonies, percussion, and fiddle. Having so much of myself involved and getting rewarded with a nomination is something I’m very grateful for. The album is so layered in who we are as individuals and as a family. It’s a triumphant thing to be rewarded and know that you did it wholeheartedly, you put yourself out there, it was authentic. There was so much effort put in even before we stepped into the studio. It’s such a privilege to get a nomination. I’m very appreciative of the process and how everyone has been receiving the album.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, you referred to yourselves as “the spirit of Memphis.” Memphis has a rich musical history … and also a “history.” In those contexts, what is “the spirit of Memphis”?

Tierinii Jackson: The music of Memphis has always reflected the story of Memphis – the struggles, the conflicts, the triumph of being resilient, all the challenges. That’s what we are as a group. We face challenges not only in Memphis, but also in the music business. As young Black women, and for Ori, as a foreigner, we face these challenges, but we turn it into something beautiful.

Our music is uplifting. Our music is positive. No matter what you hear about Memphis and the struggles the city goes through, when you walk into a store, somebody’s smiling at you. You still get that Southern hospitality. It still feels good here. That’s who we are. We are the spirit of Memphis. It doesn’t matter what we’re facing. We come through with this glorious, triumphant spirit. You dance and shout through all those troubles. We have fun. Our crowds – we make sure they’re clapping their hands, and we make it our intention to lift the spirits around us. That’s how you survive in Memphis – by being intentional with your words and how you communicate with your community. That’s how we reflect the spirit of Memphis.

The word “organic” is dreadfully overused, but it’s a bit inevitable with this album. Could you give us some insight into what happens when you create together? Maybe select one track and walk us through the process?

Tierinii Jackson: I would like to start with “Found A Friend In You.” We ladies were raised in church and that was all we knew for years. My father is from Senatobia, Mississippi, and he’s a guitar player. At some point, I wanted to know what the music was like where my father’s from, because I was looking to understand our identity in the blues genre. When I realized that the grooves we grew up playing in church was the sound of North Mississippi blues, we decided to dive in, because that came most natural to us.

“Found A Friend In You” is a Hill Country Blues groove, but it’s also a gospel groove, because blues and gospel are one and the same. That’s what we grew up playing in the church. So, foot-stomping, hand-clapping. It was the easiest to write. The lyrics flowed. The stops you hear right before the choruses – that’s organic. That’s second nature to us. When you hear that “dreadful” word “organic,” [all laugh] it means that when we’re our happiest, that’s the sound you hear, because that’s what comes from inside. That was put in us through generations of rhythms. It’s in our blood.

Tikyra Jackson: Getting into the studio, [there] came organic ideas and things. The tambourines on that song, you’ve got me playing on my hip, and Ava playing as well, and this energy of us being in a setting and worshiping in a way. We’re celebrating. You pull from your environment, and in the environment we grew up in, it was always extra instruments laying around. You just picked up something. In the studio, we came prepared, but a lot was inspired in the moment. When we talk about “organic,” we are so true to the sound and the music that we didn’t have the answers all the time throughout this process, and we trusted that we would find them along the way.

Ava Jackson: We recorded just about everything live and together. We did separate takes of our vocals with separate mics, takes with all three of us on one mic in a booth, and then we doubled all of that. It gives a very dense presence with the harmony. With this song, and in church, we’re hitting tambourines and it’s coming from the Holy Ghost, the spirit, and so you’re hitting it passionately.

What provides the drive in the song is us continuously playing that tambourine rhythm all the way throughout. Sometimes you add rhythmic ad-libs. With the harmonies, it’s like in church – you break out in song and everybody falls into place. I’ll be in the higher range, Tierinii in the mid-range, and TK in the lower range. We break out into that and it continues throughout the song, that reiteration of togetherness and the reflection of how we organically express what we’re singing.

The word “organic”– this style of music is innate for us. You weren’t taught how to do it. You were born into it. The fiddle adds another layer to the harmony and it also feels jovial. So towards the end it’s like you find your way. You’re triumphant. “Found A Friend In You” is like a foot-stomping, hand-clapping, praise type of song, and people receive it that way as well.

Ori, could you address the question from the perspective of guitars within Southern Avenue’s music?

Ori Naftaly: “Found A Friend In You” tells the story of me, Tierinii, and TK meeting and how it felt when we started playing together and finding peace. Past albums were different attempts at “What is the Southern Avenue sound?” When Ava joined full-time, I realized, “We have three singers. This is a family. This isn’t fabricated. This is who we are.” That’s the “organic” we talked about.

We doubled down on what makes us special and that also meant doubling down on guitars. I’ve been listening to Memphis music since I was 6 and I’ve been playing the blues since I can remember. The spirit of Memphis that we talked about earlier also comes from God putting me with Tony Pearson, a Black guitar player from Birmingham, Alabama, for a decade [in Israel], teaching me what it means to play the blues. Many blues purists will tell me that I am not a “blues guitar player,” but the blues is in everything I do; I can’t get away from it. It’s a feeling, not a formula. We play the blues all the time, but we don’t play traditional blues. We play original new music that ends up being blues. So the guitars are a reflection of my existence within the group.

Tierinii Jackson: For years, Ori was the blues guy and me and TK were trying to push the band to be more funk and contemporary. What we’re embracing today, Ori saw years ago. It took us a journey to get to this point where we said, “It’s time for us to embrace our roots and this sound.” We grew up very sheltered, so we were in our rebellious era. We wanted to be rock stars, funk stars, pop stars. We didn’t know who we were. We didn’t know what was special about us. Our fans saw us before we saw ourselves. When we harmonized, they heard the soul, the church, the blues. It took us a while to grow up and ask ourselves, “Who are we?”

When the pandemic set us down and we didn’t have the stage, the crew, the co-writes, and the producers, it was, “Who are we to our core and what can we do?” This is what we came up with. All the tours and festivals that we’ve been through, we haven’t heard anybody do the three-part harmony over the Hill Country grooves. Ori has always been the blues guy. He’s always been trying to get us to see what was special about ourselves. But he also respects us enough to allow us to have this journey.

Given your origin stories, the state of the world, and what you are trying to accomplish – in addition to the stressors of touring, the industry, parenthood, and life in general – how does music help protect your mental health?

Tierinii Jackson: It’s the only tool I’ve had since I was young. I grew up with six siblings. My house was chaos, and I never developed a relationship with my mother where I could talk to her about things and she could give me guiding advice. Music has always been my peace within the chaos. It was always my closest companion. Growing up, I had “friends” at school, but I never had close relationships where I could speak about things. So music has always been my only safe space. When I need to express myself, it’s music that I express myself into. When I need to be hugged, it’s music that will show up in the universe and hit me in the heart. It’s like God’s sign, letting me know I’m not alone. Music is my gift. It’s everything to do with my mental health. It’s the only thing that’s holding me.

Ori Naftaly: All of our albums, we write for our mental health. But there’s two aspects: keeping yourself sane [and] growing spiritually. We do both. We grow spiritually, and we use music as a barrier. We all used music as a gateway when we were kids and as we grew up. We do the same here. We choose to have lyrics that uplift people. If we wrote songs that don’t have messages in them, maybe we wouldn’t touch people the same way.

Ava Jackson: Being raised around music and church, it’s always been a communal thing. There’s always been people jamming and the enjoyment of making music. I think that does provide a certain amount of healing. Music provides release or relief. You hear a song, or you’re singing a song, you’re singing from your heart and soul, and what comes from the heart reaches the heart. Music is where people find true healing and where they can express whatever they’ve been holding in. Music enables you to release all of those emotions or tears. Mentally, I feel a lot better when I’m playing music. If I don’t practice my violin, or if I don’t play for a long time, I start to feel more of a depressive state. But when I do play, I feel that dopamine. I feel the rise in energy and I feel a lot more sharp. To have that at your fingertips is a privilege, and that’s something I know I’ll have forever.

Tikyra Jackson: For me, growing up, music was like drinking water. It was always there. I didn’t know how valuable it was. It was just something I could do. It was music and cinema. We watched so many movies growing up that showed me what the world could look like outside of going to church every day, because that’s really all we did. But in going to church, what did I love about it? The music. Our family was the musicians of the church. My mom was the organist. My dad was a guitar player. My big brother and me — drummers. Then you have the choir. All the girls are in the choir.

Today, music has given me experiences that let me know that as people, it doesn’t matter where you are. We’re all the same. We all want to be understood, we all want to be heard, and we all want to be loved. Music allows me to understand people without having, necessarily, a literal conversation, but a spiritual conversation. Each time you open yourself up in this manner, you evolve, you grow, you expand. Every time you play music, you create new neurological pathways. Within that, I agree with Ava. I have to do this. Music can reach you and touch you in ways that the natural world cannot. It reminds you of what’s important.

Photo Credit: Rory Doyle

Bluegrass Gospel,
Arena-Style

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

This feature ought to start with a laundry list of our subject’s accomplishments, but rootsy country hitmaker Dierks Bentley’s résumé and inventory of accolades, awards, and trophies would be far too long to include. After 30+ years in Nashville, Bentley has more than made it and his particular brand of country – down-to-earth approachability, bro-ey (while remarkably non-toxic) good-time vibes, honeyed crackling vocals, an unwavering sense of humor, and fierce love for bluegrass virtuosity – has now gained such a strong gravitational pull, it continues to shift Music Row. (For the better, of course.)

In June, Bentley released his eleventh studio album, Broken Branches, and launched an eponymous continent-spanning tour with everybody’s favorite, fellow trad country lover Zach Top, and swampgrass North Georgia duo the Band Loula in tow. Broken Branches features guests like Miranda Lambert, Riley Green, John Anderson, and more and – like all of the albums in his expansive Dierkscography – quite a few string band- and bluegrass-inspired moments, as well.

The Broken Branches Tour, which has been clipped and shared thousands and thousands of times on social media over the past several weeks, includes many hits, striking sets and theatrical tech, cameos from the infamous Hot Country Knights, and, yes, plenty of bluegrass. On the set list, Bentley and Top duet on an incredible “Freeborn Man” – we’re leaving out spoilers here so you can catch the tour’s scant remaining dates yourself and still be delighted. Bentley also performs the title track from his hit bluegrass album, 2010’s Up On The Ridge, and Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills of The Band Loula join him elsewhere in the set for a delicious bit of church.

@thebandloula the broken branches tour is in fulll effectttt 🥹🤧 y’all come see us with @dierksbentley and @Zach Top ♬ original sound – The Band Loula

Singing a Bill Monroe bluegrass gospel number in tight, intricate three-part harmony may seem like an odd choice for a big mainstream country arena show, but longtime fans and listeners of Bentley will know this is no aberration. This is the norm. Whatever the sonics of his music, from the most poppy and radio-ready country to the more Americana-coded to straight-ahead bluegrass, classic rock, and New Orleans grooves (and back again), Bentley brings bluegrass with him everywhere he goes. He brings its pickers, legends, and unsung heroes, too, uplifting them for all to enjoy.

When Mills, Simmons, and Bentley step to the center stage of an enormous auditorium or amphitheater to sing “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray,” depicted behind them on towering LED screens is a little log cabin dive bar with a neon cross steeple and a flickering “open” sign. As they lead the audience in the stark, convicting, hair-raising number – with grit and heart and endless spirit – you realize, yes, this is church. This is gospel. This is country and bluegrass, front porch music and arena music. This is Saturday night and this is Sunday morning.

It’s hard to imagine all of these intricate roots music details not only being palpable in a show of this scale, but they’re also measured, vulnerable, and intimate – traits not known as hallmarks of either country or bluegrass. It’s here that we find exactly the conglomeration of reasons why Bentley retains such widespread appeal and adoration from fans of all entry points. While neither he nor any other artist is universally loved, Dierks Bentley accomplishes being the modern country “everyman” not by diluting himself and his personality beyond recognition, but by purposefully, creatively, hilariously – and spiritually! – putting all of himself on the line in his music.

Before the Broken Branches tour launched earlier this summer, Good Country sat down backstage with Dierks Bentley and the Band Loula during a break from tour rehearsals, after the trio had just run through “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray.” We spoke about what bluegrass means in a country context, the appeal of gospel to folks of any (or no) faith, tent revivals and camp meetings, the joys and vulnerabilities of singing harmony, and much more.

Obviously, Dierks, across your entire career you’ve had a relationship with bluegrass. And not just Up On The Ridge, which we just heard you rehearse a bit of for the Broken Branches Tour. You’ve got records and posters on the wall at the Station Inn here in Nashville, you namecheck Keith Whitley on the new album. You’ve worked with the McCourys over and over, Charlie Worsham, an excellent bluegrass picker, is in your band. There are so many more bluegrass touchpoints. Your bluegrassy CMA Awards show appearance last year was very popular with our audience.

And for y’all, the Band Loula, you call yourself “swampgrass.” The harmonies clearly have the grit and the gospel of bluegrass and the timbre of how your voices blend together reminds me of bluegrass.

It might be an obvious question to ask, but I figured we could go around the circle here and get each of your takes on what does the genre mean to you? What’s your relationship with bluegrass? What does bluegrass mean to you in the constellation of country music that you make now?

Dierks Bentley: When I think about bluegrass, obviously it’s the music and all that, but really it’s just people with acoustic instruments gathering to play and sing together. I never really did a lot of stints on my own, solo. Probably I’m not good enough, but bar gigs where I was just doing cover songs never really interested me. I always liked being in a band. I love the way this instrument talks to that instrument, this voice talks to that voice, and this voice gets added and– “Whoa!”

Like the Osborne Brothers, they’re switching harmonies. Sonny is singing the high tenor, then the next thing you know, he is on like a low baritone part. The voices, the way they move around. That’s the main thing, that’s what drew me in when I walked into the Station. And there were guys my age. I always thought bluegrass was kinda like Hee Haw stuff. I walked in and I was like, “Oh my God, there’s guys my age.”

It was about just playing songs together. And they were doing a lot of Merle Haggard songs, George Jones songs mixed in. Johnny Cash songs mixed in with Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, and all that too. So it was just, “Wow.”

It’s more about the community of people congregating through and with their instruments. And using those to have fun – and drinks as well. [Laughs] Lotsa drinks, a lot of moonshine back then. The real stuff! No label on it.

Not 30 proof. [Laughs]

DB: That’s what it means to me and that’s what I hear in [The Band Loula’s] music, a lot of, if you want to call it, “front porch” picking music. Picking their roots – you know, deep, Southern gospel-y kind of roots, the mixing of that, and those voices together.

That’s what bluegrass has always been to me. It’s about the community as much as it is about the instrumentation and the bands. It’s the great community of people.

(L to R): Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills (of the Band Loula) confer with Dierks Bentley during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.

Logan Simmons: I’ll say something that comes top of mind for me. I spent my whole life going to tent revivals. It’s not just, “I go and it’s summer camp, ’cause somebody made me.” It’s like the pinnacle of who I am.

I really believe that it’s the pillar of my family. We go for about 10 to 15 days every year. It’s beside my nanny’s house, and all it is, red-back hymns and bluegrass. The service happens every night and you go for about an hour and a half before service starts, before preaching starts, to hear bluegrass, gospel bands.

That’s how I learned harmonies, hearing all my godmothers and aunts sing the wrong ones around me. [Laughs] And you’ll hear somebody over there, Linda’s like [sings operatically and off-tune] and she’s not on it at all. But I was at least learning something and I feel like with my roots in general, it already infused that bluegrass sound into my life.

Then when Malachi and I became friends and started making music together. He has a lot of Motown roots. I think, blended together, the blues and bluegrass just made something beautiful. And, on top of that, the family harmony we have together. We’ve been friends forever, half our lives.

Malachi Mills: It all comes back to blues, yeah. And just like you said, that cross-pollination of the different genres. North Georgia is like the southern point of Appalachia. Like she said, it really influences the music we make by our harmonies. That’s the biggest thing we take from it. I love bluegrass music, but I’m not like a bluegrass buff. I would lose at bluegrass trivia. [Laughs] But it’s just in our bones and in the harmonies that she was talking about. Growing up in church and everything influences the way that we sing together and the notes that we pick whenever we’re singing harmonies. One of the biggest things that I love about bluegrass is the rhythm and pocket. And the intonation of the instruments. Bluegrass players choose to be intentional about [all of] it, the pocket, the timing, the tuning. It’s all so dead on. The details matter when you’re making records.

Dierks Bentley and band give Good Country and members of the media an exclusive sneak peek at their Broken Branches Tour set at rehearsals in May 2025 in Nashville. Photo by Zach Belcher.

I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s striking that y’all have this bluegrass song as part of this big, arena-sized stage show. Because for me, translating those details in such a big space and in such a broad format could be really hard.

Then I hear and see y’all singing in three parts with a neon cross behind you and suddenly yes, this is church. This is what it is. Any close-singing harmony vocals are great, but when it really sounds like bluegrass to me is when you can hear the reeds of your voices match up when you’re harmonizing. That was a really beautiful moment.

Could you talk a little bit about capturing those details for a big audience in big rooms like this – or even outside, in amphitheaters. How do you take a Bill Monroe gospel song and translate it to that space?

DB: Well, there’s “Bluegrass” Ben Helson out there walking the hallways. Ben and a couple other guys in the band have played with Ricky Skaggs. Ben played with Ricky and Tim [Sergent] still plays with Ricky. I always say, if you can graduate from the Ricky Skaggs school of bluegrass and country music, you’re probably a pretty good musician. He also played with Rhonda Vincent.

I’m a big Del McCoury fan. They did [“Get Down on Your Knees and Pray”] and Del has such a cool version of it. We were just kinda thinking of songs to do with these guys that would be great using their voices. Like [they] said, they’re the blues and bluegrass. I’m still trying to figure out their sound. It’s such a unique mixture; it’s so Americana in the way that in this country we have this melting pot of stuff. We thought it would be cool to do a little three-part thing, so that one came up.

Marty Stuart also did a really cool version of that song. But Ben [Helson], our guitar player really came up with that [arrangement], leaning into the swampy stuff they do. Gave it that feel, a little Southern – I don’t know what the vibe is there, but that telecaster is playing and it just has a cool kind of dirty, bluesy vibe to it. Then working up the harmonies, there’s just something about hearing a cappella bands.

I remember seeing Billy Strings at a bluegrass festival years ago and the band all stopped – no one knew who he was back then. Bryan Sutton had told me who he was, so I was where he was. He played like a Thursday set in the middle of the day. They had just done three songs and then they stopped and did a four-part harmony thing. There’s just something about it that’s so powerful. It goes straight to your soul.

The oldest version of entertainment there was was probably harmonizing. Finding people, seeing how your voices sound together, it’s a weird, cool thing. Singers talk about it all the time, in any genre of music about how seeing how we sound together is an intimate thing.

It’s vulnerable and it’s immediately establishing that community that you’re talking about. “We may not be a band, but now we’re a thing.”

DB: I feel like I blend well with anybody, because I’m like the condition. I sing it pretty straight here and allow the people around me to really do their stuff. I’m just gonna hold the line. There’s like nothing special about my voice, but it’s good to blend with ’cause other people have these amazing voices. They can do a lot of movement and a lot of great vibrato. I’m like the dumbest Del McCoury School of Bluegrass [student], just find that note and put everything into it. [Laughs]

Not to mention, introducing people to bluegrass as well – I love that. You have a chance to be a bridge to your heroes and that is always fun. People have been that to me, Marty Stuart probably the biggest. You get into Marty Stuart’s music and you find out who he likes, and then, whoa! He brings you back there. So [I hope] this turns somebody onto Bill Monroe. That’s pretty cool.

Dierks Bentley has a quiet moment on stage during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.

Country – a lot like blues, R&B, and the early days of rock and roll – it has this often tempestuous and inspiring relationship between the fun of Saturday night and the conviction of Sunday morning. So seeing y’all sing that song in front of the depiction of a church as a dive bar, complete with a neon cross and a flickering “open” sign – to me that’s “a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man” epitomized. You guys are embodying that relationship between the sacred and the secular here. And that duality is all over your new album, too, Dierks.

MM: I’ll say, I think that one of the biggest things that contributes to that is the goosebump, hair-standing-up-on-your-arm feeling. It’s knowing that you have a part in something and whenever you sing and play bluegrass music together, you have to give way to one another on stage. So it’s the whole stage saying we’re doing this very intentionally in unity, in harmony.

And everybody in the crowd, whether they know that or not, they feel it. That’s what I think people feel. Even if you’re not a believer and maybe the message that’s being said [doesn’t apply], but you still resonate with serving each other. With being present, which is a strong energy. I think that’s what makes me excited about playing this song. I don’t know what’s gonna happen emotionally for me whenever that moment happens, ’cause it’s gonna be so much of that unified energy.

DB: Unified energy is a good way of putting it. It’s unified and it really is energy.

We’re pretty involved with the church. I have an older daughter who’s involved in the church and another middle daughter who doesn’t believe it like I did. But there’s something divine that you just can’t ignore, whether you believe it or not – just look at a sunset, look at a flower, look at a fish, look at so much unnecessary beauty in the world. There’s just some energy that exists and you can’t deny it when you sing a song like this. It just taps [something] on anybody. Recognizing how small you are in this world and the power of whatever version of prayer you do.

LS: I liked how you said it joins secular and holy together and that actually made me think of the tent revival, as well. I think growing up in Appalachia, like Malachi said – I wish I could just teleport you there so you could experience!

DB: That would be cool, a tent revival – I can’t even imagine.

I haven’t been to a camp meeting or revival in so long!

LS: Everybody’s invited to camp meeting. I don’t know if you’d love it. Our tent – I say tent, it’s like a shack on a square, it’s like a big square, four sides. So we’ll say, “Are you on the upper line or the lower line?” We’re on the upper line, which is not a good thing. It’s like you think upper line is like uppity people or something, but it’s not. Our shack is the oldest and [most] untouched of the whole campground. It was built in 1846.

DB: Wow!

LS: So there’s holes in the roof and like, my bunk bed, I get water drops on my head if it rains. There’s hay floors, there’s no air, and there’s a lot of us, so it’s all packed in there. But camp meeting is where I learned my first Bible verses and where I smoked my first joint. [Laughs] So it all marries together how you said, like holy and secular at the same time. I think of that picture of going to the gospel tent revival, going to camp meeting, singing those red-back hymns, doing all those things – but then also learning the grit of growing up.

I just loved when you said joining those things together, because that was such a representation of my upbringing. Yeah, it’s a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man. It’s definitely Saturday nights and Sunday mornings – and the tent revival is where I feel like those two worlds are so evident.

Dierks, in all you’ve done across your career there are all these bluegrass moments. The country that you “grow,” it’s mainstream, it’s radio-ready, but it’s like there’s bluegrass in the “soil” you grow it in, so you can always taste bluegrass in everything you do. Like on the new record, “Never You” with Miranda Lambert feels that way and “For As Long As I Can Remember”–

DB: There’s a little “Circles Around Me” by Sam Bush [reference] there at the top of that song.

Oh my gosh, yeah! Exactly what I’m talking about.

You said a little bit earlier turning people onto your heroes always feels great, but for you, from your own perspective being that guy that used to just hang out at the Station Inn and now being the Dierks Bentley and going on tour in sheds and arenas and amphitheaters… Why do you keep bluegrass with you?

Dierks Bentley: It is selfish in a lot of ways. I have such a great band and I just take so much joy watching them do cool stuff that I can’t do. It’s like our guitar player, Ben, he’s just an unbelievable flat picker. Charlie Worsham’s in our band and Charlie won the CMA Musician of the Year. He is just an incredible musician. Dan [Hochhalter] is an incredible fiddle player. Tim is so underutilized. Our steel guitar player – who plays banjo and everything else – he’s one of the best singers to me. Hearing him is like hearing Merle Haggard. He sings like nobody else, but he’s also so underutilized. And Steve’s been playing with me since 1999.

It’s just a great group and we love bluegrass music, featuring that, and having the music part of the show. I like being in a band setting, so just getting to be around it and hear these instruments swirling around me playing, I think it’s just cool.

I got a chance to play ROMP Festival last year and I feel lucky to be friends with guys like Jerry Douglas and Sierra Hull and have them come up on stage and play with us. I still think bluegrass music is the punk rock of country. It’s just the coolest genre of music there is.

It’s gotta be centering or grounding to a certain degree just to have that as something you can go back to, to feed yourself and fill yourself back up even while you’re touring.

DB: Absolutely. In the show we go from playing Tony Rice to John Michael Montgomery. We play bluegrass with the Hot Country Knights with costumes on. It’s just it’s all very selfish! It’s like, “How can I have a lot of fun in the next 90 minutes?”

I wanna do our radio country. I want people singing songs back, because that’s a great feeling. I want to get a little bluegrass in there. Just see if we get away with that. Then, can we try to get canceled on the way out? [Laughs] I dunno. It’s really fun for me. And having these guys [out with us] and getting to harmonize with them, it’s gonna be really fun. Check back in a few months, see how it turned out.

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All photos by Zach Belcher.

MIXTAPE: Flamy Grant’s Songs for Healing Gay Religious Trauma

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Welcome to the playlist you probably didn’t have on your bingo card this year: a series of songs spanning from gospel music to ’90s folk to contemporary singer-songwriters, all curated by a drag queen with a number one Christian album under her belt. I’m Flamy Grant, and I’m honored that BGS invited me to share the songs that healed my very gay, very religious trauma.

My first record was called Bible Belt Baby, so I know a thing or two about growing up in the shadow of a religious fervor that wants boys to be boys, girls to be girls, and gays to keep it in the closet. Here are a few of the songs that helped me not only to come out, but to let this little light of mine keep shining in the faces of a lot of people who’d prefer it were hidden under a bushel. Not today, gatekeepers. Not today. – Flamy Grant

“If You Ever Leave” – Flamy Grant

Oh, hello darling. I’m a drag queen with wares to sell. Of course I’m starting off this playlist with my new single! It is, at least, very much on topic. This ballad from my forthcoming record, CHURCH, pretty much speaks for itself, but I will offer this one, brief, supplemental thought: if there’s a God demanding your worship, but as you get to know him you discover that you are capable of loving people better and more completely than he is… don’t worship that God. Girl… it’s a trap.

“Undamned” – Over the Rhine

Outside of Amy Grant, no artist has had as much of an impact on me as Ohio-based duo Over the Rhine. Karin and Linford have saved my life ten times over. “I’m not your little lost lamb, God might still get my world undamned.” This song somehow manages to be both defiant (personally, my favorite posture) and repentant. Brazenly owning your apostasy while unabashedly surrendering to a cosmic, supernatural love at the same time? Slay. (Bonus: Lucinda Williams delivers an absolutely divine featured vocal. Undamn me anyday, Over the Rhine.)

“Wrap My Arms Around Your Name” – Sarah Masen

When I was growing up, I was only allowed to listen to Christian music. Sarah Masen was always a bit of a square peg in a round Christian music industry hole, and one of the first songwriters I encountered who addressed the conflict, doubt, and dissonance inherent to the faith everyone else around her was putting such a sheen on.

From the first line, “Mystery’s walking on my head again,” I was hooked on this song about yearning to feel deeply spiritually connected. “Does hallelujah wear the same old face?” Excellent existential question, Sarah. Thanks for giving my teenage angst a place to freely ask it.

“Amy’s Song” – Matt Simons

Back in 2018, I was a worship leader for a queer-affirming church in San Diego and we decided for Pride month that year that we would put on a worship service that was 100% produced, led, and delivered by our queer members. I even wanted to make sure every song we sang had been written (or co-written, in this case) by a card-carrying member of the alphabet mafia. I found “Amy’s Song” and loved the music and the message: “Does your God really give a damn” about who I love?

The twist for me was in discovering that one of the song’s co-writers, and its namesake, Ames, and I had played a show together years before in when we were both closeted and going by different stage names. I led “Amy’s Song” at our church that Sunday and Ames and I have since reconnected online. We’ve even been talking about writing something together one of these days. “Amy’s Song 2: The Ballad of Flamy,” perhaps? (Pro tip: after you listen, go watch the music video and making-of mini-doc, both on Matt Simons’ YouTube page. Bring Kleenex.)

“breathe again” – Joy Oladokun

Honestly, it was hard to pick just one song from Joy Oladokun’s extensive repertoire of musical remedies for the religiously wronged. She is both plainspoken and poignant, capturing the heartbreak so many queer people experience when we grow up in families and cultures that suffocate us in a shame-inducing, manipulative desecration of divine love. Joy’s voice in this song just melts me, and it’s a breath of fresh air for the closeted kid I used to be when she uses it to sing, “If I hold my breath until I’m honest, will I ever breathe again?”

“Someday You’ll Wake Up Okay” – Spencer LaJoye

This is inner child work of the highest order and nobody translates the specific into the universal with such clarity as my friend Spencer. “You won’t hear me, but I’ll think it from the future.” Oof. Also, who knew healing your inner child could be such a bop?

“Holy Sunlight” – Steven Delopoulos

Something about the music of Stephen Delopoulos, who fronted the ’90s Christian band Burlap to Cashmere, just feels reverent. It’s like high-church Paul Simon. This song reminds me that even when we’re leaving, we’re really not. “Pack my luggage, fake a smile/ Don’t cry, we’re all connected like the ocean sea.”

“Faith” – Semler

No one is more emblematic of a reckoning for the Christian music industry to me than my pal Semler, who was the first out queer artist to have a number one Christian record a couple years back. In “Faith,” they are eye-level with the abusers of power in the church they’re confronting. “Don’t pretend I’m not your body.” GOOSEBUMPS, HUN. And it’s a song that somehow doubles as a powerful worship anthem of sorts for the disenfranchised? We’re here, we’re queer, and we still have faith, dear. I live.

“Shiloh” – Audrey Assad

I had stopped listening to CCM by the time Audrey got her record deal with juggernaut Christian label Sparrow Records back in 2010, so I missed most of her early career. But during the pandemic, I learned about this (wildly-talented) artist that Christian media outlets were criticizing for “backsliding.” Don’t tempt me with a good time, I said. Audrey and I have become friendly on social media since then, and she’s so much more than a good time. She’s a healer. This song in particular patches up a new part of me every time I hear it. God bless the ones who leave the church but never stop providing care for souls.

“The Way You Get Found” – Story & Tune

I’m proud to say I was the first person to ever hear this excellent song, in the basement of the San Diego house I shared during pandemic with its writers, Karyn and Ben. The line that got me then still gets me today: “I bless the way you carve your name on the gate-kept inner sanctums where they said you couldn’t stay.” Absolute pros, these two, crafting an artful turn of phrase that not only perfectly fits the demanding cadence of the song, but delivers a well-placed gut punch to folks who know what it’s like to stand up to religious bullies when they say we can’t be on their playground.

“Jacob from the Bible” – Jake Wesley Rogers

This song came through my Spotify algorithm one day and stopped me in my tracks. Of course, now Jake is a world famous colorful crooner and besties with Elton John, etc., but when this song came out, I was able to reach him online and successfully petitioned him to be on my podcast. You can still listen to that conversation. We talk about this song, where it came from, what it meant to each of us, and why Jake should definitely be our first gay president. For me, it feels like a life-giving extraction from all the oppressive weight of religious expectation. “I don’t want to be held down by a heavenly man.” Makes me think of Jacob from the Bible when he defeated the angel in an all night wrestling match. (Hot!) And honey, wrestling with God? Relatable.

“Testify to Love” – Wynonna

Okay, this might be the only bonafide CCM hit in the mix. It was originally recorded by Christian supergroup Avalon and if you were anywhere near Christianity in 1997/98, this song is In. Your. Bones. Every once in a while when I’m playing to an audience of a certain age — the ones who were in youth group about the same time as me — I’ll bust this out as a cover during my set and, well, let’s just say it’s so cute to watch half the room have a dramatic That’s So Raven-style flashback. But I propose to you that at the end of the day, it’s a gay song. I mean, the opening lyric is, “All the colors of the rainbow!” It’s all about how love wins!

What really seals the deal is Wynonna Judd’s countrified cover of the song from a very special episode of Touched by an Angel. I dare you to listen and not agree that Christianity peaked in 1997 and we should frankly just ignore everything that’s come out of evangelicalism since this song ruled the airwaves.

“House of Spirits” – Allman Brown

London-based singer-songwriter Allman Brown taps right into all of our generational trauma and father wounds with this achingly gorgeous spiritual about how it feels to sit vigil by the deathbed of a parent who “damned my soul to the fires.” As someone with a damaged and deeply strained relationship with an ultra-religious father who’s still alive, this song gives me a glimpse into the journey ahead, and I find myself praying along with Allman that one day that house of spirits “will feel like home.”

“What You Heard” – Amy Grant

An Amy Grant song on this list was inevitable, but far less likely is a song from a parent who learned better communication skills by going to family therapy with her kids. But that’s exactly what we have in this, the first new song from the Queen of Christian Pop in a decade. I saw Amy perform it last year and she told the story of how group therapy with her family helped her understand that some of the ways she thought she was communicating love to her kids weren’t exactly landing that way on their ears. It’s the kind of thing most survivors of religious trauma can only dream of: a God-fearing parent gaining perspective later in life and using therapy tools to change behavior? A better relationship through effective communication? May we all be so fortunate. But even if we’re not, my favorite diva (she would never call herself that, so someone has to) has gifted us with this beautifully-written song that shows it’s possible. Amy and amen.

“May I Suggest” – Susan Werner

I’ll leave you with the best benediction that’s ever been spoken (sung) over me. I wish someone had invited me to the Susan Werner party years ago, so I’m making it my mission to bring as many plus-ones as possible now that I’m here. Actually, in a way, I’ve been here since high school, I just didn’t know it. The first time I heard this song was as a cover by Ellis Paul and Vance Gilbert back in the late ’90s, but I just assumed it was theirs. Then about a year ago, a friend sent me a track by Susan called “Our Father,” in which she expertly/hilariously reimagines the Lord’s Prayer (“Deliver us from those who think they’re you”). I was hooked and started working my way through her catalog, but it wasn’t until I saw her live at the Kerrville Folk Festival earlier this year that I learned she was the composer of this song I loved when I was 17.

When she sat down at a baby grand and soulfully set out to convince a field full of festival-goers that “this is the best part of your life,” I openly wept. It’s tempting after you escape from oppressive, high-demand religion to fall into the trap of regret for a lost youth and years of missed chances. Susan invites us to consider the other side of that coin: thanks to the trauma you’ve survived, “Inside you know what’s yours to finally set right.” The next time Susan is anywhere near you, drag yourself (yes I said DRAG) and everyone you love to the show — and hope that she sings this benediction over you, too.

Photo Credit: Sydney Valiente

Today’s Bluegrass Gospel Is All About Good News

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

While playing music in a bar, Tammy Rogers of The SteelDrivers learned a lesson that would guide her life choices. After Rogers graduated from college, she was happily earning her living as a musician. But she wondered if it was enough.

“I felt like it was all about me, rather than what I could give back and put into the world.” She had considered teaching or studying music therapy, thinking that, “Maybe I needed to be actively doing something to help.”

Here’s where the bar band comes in.

“I remember this like it was yesterday. I sang a gospel song.” Rogers said. “And after the set, a couple came up to me and said, ‘Thank you so much for singing that song. It meant so much to us.’ And it was like a light bulb came on – answering the question, ‘What should I be doing with my life?’”

For Rogers, the interaction with that couple in the bar was God giving her the message that she was doing what she was meant to do.

“The music that you write, the music that you play can touch people and help them, whether it’s in happiness or sorrow.”

Bluegrass musicians often incorporate old and new gospel songs into their performances. Whether it’s the melodies, the spine-tingling harmonies, the familiarity, or the content, gospel music has an enduring appeal to the full spectrum of bluegrass fans, regardless of culture or religion.

Last year, The SteelDrivers, as well as the young band High Fidelity, produced gospel albums – Tougher Than Nails and Music In My Soul, respectively – and Chris Jones released a gospel track, “Step Out in the Sunshine.” For them, the music is personal. They all come from a place of faith and sincere connection to the good news of the gospel, as well as loving the music itself.

In the rural communities where bluegrass began, life often centered around church, as a place of prayer, music, and friendship. Eventually, Southern gospel music also took on a life independent of worship.

Wayne Erbsen wrote in his charming book, Rural Roots of Bluegrass, “By the 1850s, songwriters were composing new gospel songs to appeal to the thousands who flocked to the rapidly growing number of shape-note singing conventions throughout the south.”

These lucrative gatherings – possibly more entertainment than spiritual – continued well into the 20th century. Erbsen told BGS that people would bring the books they already owned, but when they arrived, “they had to buy more books” to learn the new songs. The publishers hired excellent performers to attend the conventions and inspire the singers.

Erbsen wrote, “The songs and styles that were part of this shape-note singing convention tradition eventually merged with bluegrass instrumental and vocal styles to create a new genre now known as bluegrass gospel.”

Bill Monroe, like others of his generation, was exposed to religious-themed music. While performing with brother Charlie, Monroe’s first hit record was “What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul?” And just as he learned the blues from Black fiddler Arnold Shultz, he was “fascinated by the music of the Black churches,” Chris Jones said. That’s where Monroe learned “Walking in Jerusalem,” popular today for its rich harmonies.

High Fidelity – Jeremy Stephens, Corrina Rose Logston Stephens, Kurt Stephenson, Daniel Amick, and Vickie Vaughn – is steeped in traditional bluegrass. Corrina’s parents got hooked on Reno & Smiley and the Stanley Brothers looking through department store record bins – and Corrina has stayed close to the traditional fold ever since. “It feels like it’s in my blood,” she said.

Jeremy learned to sing harmony from his grandfather. After he picked up the fiddle, a school bus driver made him a cassette tape of classic bluegrass. “And that tape was transformative to me,” he shared.

All of High Fidelity’s music is infused with the harmonies, instrumentation, and themes of early bluegrass performers. The friends who make up High Fidelity (the name comes from the words often on labels of early bluegrass records) came together as a band to compete in the SPBGMA band contest. They never imagined they would take first place. So, “It was this overwhelming gift that we won,” Corinna said. “It almost felt like divine intervention.”

“And everyone in High Fidelity is spiritual,” she continues. “We’re all Christian folks. We all identify with the songs that we’re singing.” So, from the earliest days, she said, they felt a gospel album was in their future, to “honor the Lord and thank him for giving us this gift.”

During a long period of illness that Corinna later learned was caused by toxic mold in their home (they since have moved out, and she feels a lot better), she received another gift from God, she said. She woke in the early hours of the morning with a song in her head that was so compelling, she had to get out of bed to record it. “And almost all of the verses just came out, bypassing my conscious brain.”

That song is “The Mighty Name of Jesus.” It is a centerpiece of, and the only original on, their recording, Music In My Soul. Corinna said, “We wanted [the project] to feel like a quintessential High Fidelity record, very bluegrassy.”

She wanted to emulate another early hero, Carl Story. When listening to Story, she said, “It wouldn’t even register that I was listening to a gospel record. It was just such good bluegrass… I wanted Carl Story’s vibes.”

Their recording successfully and joyously channels the spirit and musicality of the earliest bluegrass stars. High Fidelity worked hard to find little-known gospel songs from a variety of sources, performing them with the same enthusiastic vigor that they bring to their secular music. Listeners will recognize classic banjo introductions and harmony variations that have been passed through generations since bluegrass hit the radio.

And just as Music in the Soul is undoubtedly High Fidelity, nobody but The SteelDrivers could have created Tougher Than Nails. It is gritty, bluesy and achingly human.

Rogers said that for years, The SteelDrivers’ most requested song has been “Where Rainbows Never Die,” from the 2010 recording Reckless.

“We’ve gotten so many emails, messages, people come up to us at shows, telling us how they’ve played the song at their dad’s funeral or for grandpa or whomever and how much it’s meant to them.

“It doesn’t say the word God. It doesn’t say the word Jesus. It doesn’t even use the term heaven. But it is a gospel song, a spiritual song. It’s about passing on to the next life. To me, it is such a powerful, beautiful way of sharing,” Rogers said.

In the same way, she said, a SteelDrivers’ gospel collection wouldn’t be “preaching at people or using even the language they’re familiar with. But if the message is the same, why not?”

On Tougher Than Nails, expect the same gutsy, no-holds-barred, gorgeous vocals that we love from The SteelDrivers. Their original gospel songs are as much about the dangers, choices, and blessings of humanity as their songs about liquor, guns, guitars, and heartache.

They ask us to think about Mary Magdalene, and how she balanced love for the man with love for the divine. They wonder if Judas’ heart broke as he fulfilled his destiny of betrayal. And they celebrate the victory of love over the cruelty of crucifixion.

Even “Amazing Grace” is uniquely SteelDrivers – starting with a primitive drone that weaves into the blues-driven rhythms we associate with Black Baptist church choirs.

Chris Jones is one of the most enduring and admired singers in modern bluegrass. He also is a SiriusXM radio host and writer, and a respected commentator on all things bluegrass.

Jones recently recorded “Step Out In the Sunshine.” Jones learned the song from listening to Ralph Stanley on Jones’ “all-time favorite gospel album.” It’s a song of hope and joy.

“I think the feeling and sincerity of gospel music touches all different kinds of people. It has a broad appeal, whether you’re a believer or not,” Jones said.

He noted that many bluegrass fans relate to melodies and arrangements and often overlook the lyrics. He referred to a listener who loved the song, “Julie Ann,” because it was so happy. (It’s up-tempo, but sung by a man begging his wife not to leave him.)
But lyrics do matter to the musicians who sing them.

Jones echoed a sentiment reflected in the gospel choices of High Fidelity and The SteelDrivers. A religious commitment “makes you a little more selective of what you’re willing to sing. Is this a message I really want to send to people?” Jones chooses gospel songs that are welcoming and inclusive.

High Fidelity’s Jeremy Stephens said they avoided lyrics that sounded like condemnation, the ones that say, “You’re bad because you do this and you’re bad because you do that.” He said Music In My Soul “is our hearts talking to your hearts… the Lord said, ‘Come to me as you are.’ There’s so much peace and love and acceptance in him.”

Award-winning singer and guitar player Greg Blake currently performs with his own band as well as with Special Consensus. Blake had a ministry for 30 years before becoming a full-time musician. He said he has learned a lot over the years about judgement, love, and being open-hearted. And his insights inform his choice of spiritually-oriented songs.

“When I was younger, and probably more zealous and less informed, I felt like I needed to be ‘right.’ But as I got older and looked at the teachings of Jesus, I saw that his message was more about right relationships,” rather than proper dogma or theology.

So today, Blake says, “I like to bring into gospel even songs that may not have a strong Christian element, but are just good, positive songs… that leave one with a sense of hope and love and care for one another. I think that’s the message that people of the world need to hear today.”

Photo Credit: Photo of the SteelDrivers courtesy of the artist; photo of High Fidelity by Amy Richmond.

For Chris Thile, Instrumental Music Excels in the Cracks of Language (2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Chris Thile has always woven religious references into his songwriting, but never so much as on Laysongs. Recorded in solitude in an old church with just a mandolin and a sound engineer, the new album offers lyrics that question our impulses and references that span the Bible (“Ecclesiastes”), Hungarian composers (a take on Bartok’s “Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz. 117: IV. Presto”), and bluegrass legends (a cover of Hazel Dickens’ “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me”) in service of a higher truth.

Here, in the second installment of a two-part interview, BGS catches up with Thile about co-producing an album with his wife, finding inspiration in good wine, and why great instrumental music should emulate a warm dinner conversation.

Read the first half of the BGS Artist of the Month interview with Chris Thile here.

BGS: Your wife, [actress Claire Coffee], co-produced this album with you. What did that lend to the final product, and how did it influence the process?

Thile: Pretty much since we met, she’s graciously been my unofficial editor. It was high time to just formalize that. [Laughs] When you’re doing something like this — a pure solo record, no overdubs, absolutely nothing between me and your ears — it really helps to have someone involved who is absolutely 100 percent unimpressed with you. She has heard every one of my tricks and can see straight through them, can hear straight through them.

As an actor and someone who’s made a lot of film and television, Claire cuts straight to the chase: “Is this meaning something? Does one and one equal two here? Are we starting somewhere and ending somewhere — and how is the ride between those two points? Are we engaged? Is this clear enough, and does it ever get too painfully clear? Are we leading the witness, are we telling people the punchline before we give them the setup?” I can really gild the lily when left to my own devices. Musically, I can sort of be the guy in the theatre, like, elbowing you — like I’ve seen it six times and I’m like, oh, you’re going to love this part! And so Claire, I think, is so good at being like, “Hey. Don’t do that.” [Laughs]

And perhaps, also, letting you know when it’s warranted.

Right. Sometimes I won’t pull the trigger on what would be a really interesting decision because I’m worried that I’m just swinging too hard. I sort of gingerly put the idea of doing the fourth movement of Bartok solo violin sonata. Thinking, well, this is kind of a bridge too far. I sent it to Claire like, “What if I learned this on the mandolin?” and she was like, “Absolutely. Do that. That’s gonna be amazing.” Which was just so shocking to me! I thought I had probably lost my mind. [Laughs]

It was also her idea to put it after “Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth.” I mean, I feel like everyone thinks they’re gonna get a big ol’ chance to exhale after “Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth,” and instead… I mean, think of it like these Peloton instructors: You think, “Surely, surely this is it. Surely this is the hardest I’m gonna have to go.” And they’re like, GIVE ME FIVE MORE ON YOUR RESISTANCE!!

I feel like it’s that kind of move, going from “Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth” to the fourth movement of the Bartok sonata. It’s as if the demon in “Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth” just took my mandolin from me. But that’s the kind of perspective someone who loves you—but isn’t taking any of your shit—can help you with, especially someone who also has a deep and wide skill set that is compatible with mine. It was so fun to work with her on that.

You’ve always got multiple projects going. Is there anything you learned specifically from performing in groups and making music in that atmosphere that you feel gave you an advantage when you set out to record an album alone?

The accountability — the musical accountability, artistic accountability — that you feel in a collaborative context is noticeably absent in a solo context, so you need to pick up the slack there. You need to start roleplaying those people in your life who hold you artistically accountable. Thank God I had Claire involved in this project, but on the deep I-dotting and T-crossings that you encounter at every step along the way of the record-making process, I would also assume the role of an Edgar Meyer or Gabe Witcher or a Sara Watkins. I’d tease out a little fake conversation between myself and them, all by myself in the practice room. “In what way am I not being clear enough right now? In what way am I being self-indulgent right now?”

There are so many things that you learn from the people around you. But there are also things that you can learn in the silent retreat of making music solo. There are things that I can take back to each of those projects — things I can take back to Punch Brothers, or Nickel Creek, or the Goat Rodeo Sessions — that I think could be illuminative in those contexts.

Do you enjoy talking about religion outside of your art?

People have such strong feelings about religion. You wanna bust open a conversation, bring up God — like, in a real way. People are gonna quit mincing words and they’re gonna start talking about shit. I love that. I really love talking to people about that kind of stuff, from wherever they are. I find it endlessly instructive in my own journey. I find someone’s total disinterest in it just as interesting as total interest in it. If I bring up God and you’re like, “I don’t wanna talk about that shit, come on,” then I love you for that. Let’s go with that. Let’s talk about that.

And if I bring up God and you’re like, “Ugh, you know what? I was just praying about that this morning, I feel like the Lord brought you to me,” I’m in. Let’s go there. Why do you feel that way? Let’s go there. At this point, I have no reservations about bringing up God. It’s always been an instinct of mine to infuse whatever I’m thinking about with a little of that kind of imagery and language and thought, and so this was cathartic for me to just turn all the taps on and let it run.

You push beyond your own religious upbringing, too — you also included a song, “Dionysus,” named for the Greek god of grapes and wine. What inspired you to write about that figure?

I’m always looking for encouragement, as a human being, about human beings. We see a lot of evidence of our failings right now, and I want to see evidence of our success. Wine — the existence of good wine — is evidence of our success as a species. That is a beautiful relationship with the earth. We have occasionally exploited that relationship, but the best wine comes from the healthiest relationship with the soil. The best winemakers have this beautiful balance of science and mysticism. It sounds silly, but I find the whole thing very inspiring.

Ecclesiastes 2:24 seems like it’s along those lines, too: “Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.” Why express that instrumentally rather than through lyrics?

Think about the last great dinner that you had with friends. Could you really, with words, describe to me why it was so great? Could you say, “And then we talked about this” or “Next, we gossiped about that”? When you walk me through that, or when I walk you through the last dinner I had, it’s gonna sound trite. And yet, there was something holy about it, you know? Maybe there was a new person that you sat next to, and you got a little light into a different corner of life that night. But could you say with words what that was? I don’t think you could, necessarily, say what can be so transcendent and transportive about a great dinner with friends. That’s where instrumental music excels — in the cracks of language. What language is incapable of properly expressing, instrumental music steps up and says, “I got this.”

Photos: Josh Goleman

The Righteous Gemstones Keep “Misbehavin'”

Posted on by Editor

Halfway through the first season of HBO’s megachurch comedy The Righteous Gemstones, the show devotes an entire episode to a flashback, showing how the family of Bible-thumping televangelists came to be so hilariously dysfunctional. The episode culminates in a live performance of a song called “Misbehavin’,” by siblings Aimee-Leigh (played by Jennifer Nettles) and Baby Billy (Walton Goggins). They’d been a child singing act years ago, and this countrified tale of juvenile hijinks was their biggest hit. They still remember every lyric and every dance move decades later.

The song would pop up two more times during the season, in different arrangements from different times: one from the 1960s, another from the ‘80s, and finally one in the present day. It threads through the series to present a very basic moral to the story: When you misbehave, bad things happen. But this version with Goggins and Nettles is the one that ended up going viral, a hit among fans of the show and newcomers alike who couldn’t get it out of their heads — especially that line about “running through the house with a pickle in my mouth.” It’s arguably the greatest moment on television in 2019.

“Misbehavin’” was written by the show’s creator Danny McBride, actress Edi Patterson, and composer Joseph Stephens, whose attention to detail ensured that many viewers would think the song had been around for ages. A North Carolina native who briefly studied classical guitar before discovering rock & roll as a teenager, Stephens took film classes in college and scored his friends’ student films.

“I’ve never had any formal training in music, outside of when I was a kid learning classical guitar,” he says. “I never took piano lessons or anything like that.” That approach, however, has kept him versatile. He plays an array of instruments for a diverse range of projects — many of them starring his old friend McBride, including Vice Principals and The Legacy of a White Deer Hunter. “I pride myself on being somewhat versatile, and over the years I’ve taken on jobs that asked for a lot of things that seemed outside of my wheelhouse. But that’s fun for me.”

For our latest installment of Roots on Screen, Stephens spoke to the Bluegrass Situation about writing music for church, using clog dancers as percussionists, and, most importantly, never scoring the joke.

BGS: The Righteous Gemstones is set in a South Carolina megachurch, where of course music is going to be very prominent. How familiar were you with that kind of setting?

Stephens: I went to church as a kid, and I was fascinated by big organ. I went to a Methodist church that had this massive organ built into the room. I would go back to that as a touchstone for Gemstones. I actually started using a big church organ, playing with some of the bass pedals in ways that sounded cinematic and less traditional. I was using different plug-ins and effect to mangle the sound and change it around so that it sounds big and gross at times and other times sounds really pretty and maybe spaced out. I wrote a bunch of music that I gave to Danny and the writers as they were putting the show together, just kind of formulating ideas. Danny knew he wanted to do some choir stuff, so I was exploring that as well.

Joseph Stephens

Music seems like a big part of what McBride does. There are always unexpected music cues in his shows that suggest a very deep knowledge.

Technically, these are comedies we’re making, but we both tend to gravitate toward treating it like dramatic material. So I rarely ever score a joke. I’m always trying to score the drama of the situation and letting the absurdity of what they’re doing carry the comedy. The music shouldn’t point at the joke. We treat it like a Coen Brothers movie or something heavier.

In Vice Principals we would literally score a comedic scene with ‘80s horror movie music, just to play with the unusual side of what music can do for comedy. Danny pushes me to do something different all the time, but it’s rarely ever like, “Let’s make comedy music.” It’s more like, “Let’s make music that we find interesting.”

That points to something I’ve been thinking about regarding Gemstones and how it walks a really fine line. You’re finding humor in this setting, but you stop just short of making fun of the characters’ faith. You’re not exploiting the church for cheap laughs.

When Danny first pitched me the idea, I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. It’s dicey to make a show that’s set in this heavily religious background, especially when you’re filming it in the Deep South. It seemed a little risky. But I had faith that they would find a way to do it right. And when I started reading the script, I was so pumped because it turned into something different. It turned into this absurd family drama.

The show is about this family and the degree to which the wealth and success they’ve enjoyed have turned them into monsters. It’s not really about their religious background. That’s just their job. It’s not about what they do. It’s more about what they’ve become and how they got there. I think John Goodman’s character in particular had better intentions, and we’ll see how much of that gets touched on in the future. I don’t think they knew how to handle their success — or losing their mother. The glue that held them together was lost, and now they’re just coming apart. No one’s there to give them much guidance, so they just turn into beasts.

Walton Goggins and Jennifer Nettles in The Righteous Gemstones

And a scene like “Misbehavin’” seems to carry some of that weight, despite being hilarious. It really speaks to how those two characters relate to each other, and there’s something desperate in the way these adults perform this juvenile song.

Danny and I always say that “Misbehavin’” became the soul of the show, because it captures everything the show is about: Doing bad things can lead to trouble. But it’s playful. You’re supposed to feel that these siblings are enjoying themselves and having fun with the song. It’s supposed to feel innocent and joyful, but also weird and a little left-of-center.

It also had to sound legit. It had to feel like it’s something that actually existed in the world at some point. Once we created the song, it just overtook everybody. When they filmed that scene with them singing it, everybody was singing along off-camera. It became a mild obsession for a lot of us.

And those two actors — Walton Goggins and Jennifer Nettles — have so much chemistry. What was it like recording with them?

They really did kill it. The sessions were a lot of fun, even though they didn’t do them together. Jennifer is such a pro, so she did her part in minutes. She banged it out and that was that. But Walton was way more methodical and really wanted to get into character. And then he had to shift gears and do a different version of the song when his character is much older. He and Edi did their version together, which is very different from the ‘80s version.

 

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What kind of research did you do for the song? Were you going back and finding older examples of juvenile Christian music?

When I was thinking in terms of instrumentation and when I recorded all the music, I was constantly referencing the Carter Family and Johnny Cash. It was fun to explore the way their vocals were mixed and the way their instruments were mixed. I was listening to a lot of their music just trying to figure out how they got a particular sound or whether they were putting autoharp and guitar in the same channel, just hyper-analyzing all of it.

But in terms of writing, there wasn’t really any research. I knew it was going to be somewhere in the world of Johnny Cash, with a traditional chord structure, two minutes long, two verse and a chorus and an instrumental break. The structure was going to be pretty standard. It all came together pretty fast and very easily. But I didn’t really reference any children’s music at all. It was always Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, and maybe the Collins Kids. But it wasn’t a children’s song – more like a country song that had been made famous by kids.

And there are three versions: There’s the version the kids recorded in the ‘60s, the version we see them perform in the ‘80s, and another version from the present day. Was it challenging to rearrange the song three different times for three different eras?

It was definitely challenging the whole way ‘round. We had to audition a bunch of kids and then go out to California to record them. That version had to sound one way, and then we have another version that needed to sound somewhat authentic to the ‘80s, like a live band on a church TV show would sound. And then we had to do a modern bluegrass version. And they had to be fast so they could do some legitimate clogging during the interludes.

That was tough to work out knowing that it was going to be filmed live and needed to be convincing. We didn’t want to do it in a way that was too on the nose, though. For the ‘80s version, we knew we didn’t want it to sound like Fletch or something. It couldn’t be too ‘80s. But it’s really something you’re not supposed to notice. It’s just supposed to feel inherently legitimate.

Dance is such a big part of that first performance of the song. I feel like clogging in particular so rarely portrayed in any kind of mainstream media.

That became a big part of Walton’s character. We had a choreographer that came up with their dances, and when we were recording, I brought him and his wife in and set up this wooden stage. I had them clog and do some of the routines they’d rehearsed. I kinda orchestrated them, had them do different tempos to the click and record a bunch of sounds. A lot of what sounds like percussion on the show is actually them clogging. I used it in some of the score pieces.

There’s one cue near the end of the first season when the Gemstone kids are wondering what happened to Walton’s character. As they’re talking about him, you hear this percussive sound come in. It sounds like percussion, but it’s clogging. I wanted to remind the audience of that character, so that he would be kind of hanging around some scenes even though he’s not really on screen. That was fun because I was using these percussive rhythms that I wouldn’t normally go to.

A lot of viewers thought this was an actual song that had existed for fifty or sixty years. That sounds like maybe the biggest compliment you could get.

Totally. When the song first appeared on set, apparently a lot of the crew were confused about it. They couldn’t find it on Spotify and it didn’t turn up online. They were convinced that it was something that had existed before. And that’s when we were recording the version set in the 1980s, before we’d even unveiled the original version from the ‘60s. That version ended up getting posted online illegally, and someone sent it to my wife as proof that they had found the original. He thought he had found this old recording of these two kids singing it. He was like, “This is the original!” And my wife had to tell him no no no, that’s the “original” they recorded for the show.

Photo Credit: Fred Norris/HBO